Leap Motion introduced new updates to its motion controller Thursday that allow people to use the controller with Facebook's Oculus Rift and other virtual reality headsets.
The tech company discussed its interest in virtual reality in a blog post, saying that fast and accurate hand-tracking is needed for virtual reality to have the same quality as actual reality, according to PC Magazine.
"We believe in the concept of other specialized controllers as well, but our hands themselves are the fundamental and universal human input device," Leap Motion wrote.
The controller is designed to track the user's hand movements so they don't need to touch a keyboard, mouse or screen to interact with their computers, Mashable reported.
Leap Motion unveiled its VR Developer Mount, which is targeted toward developers and lets them attach the company's controller to their existing virtual reality headset. The sensors in the controller allow the user to see the people and objects around them, while also seeing the display in the headset.
"As a rule anything you're looking at, you'll be able to interact with," said Michael Buckwald, CEO and co-founder of Leap Motion.
Instead of using game controllers for hand tracking like Oculus Rift or Sony's Project Morpheus, Leap Motion's add-on provides the experience with infrared imagery captured by the controller's sensors, PC Magazine reported.
"What it sees, you see," Leap Motion said, adding that the controller's integration with virtual reality headsets "expands the tracking space to be in any direction you're facing."
"You can reach forward, turn around, look up and down, and the tracking follows you wherever you go," the company said. "Because our device's field of view exceeds that of existing VR displays, you'll find it can start to track your hands before you even see them."
The mount is available now for $19.99, and Leap Motion is adding top-down tracking to its software, Mashable reported. Buckwald said the company has been looking to get involved in virtual reality for a long time.
"It [virtual reality] does align really well with the original vision of the company, which was a deep frustration with the disconnection of people with computers and a desire to bridge the gap that exists between us and our computers by letting us reach into them with our hands," he said.
Leap Motion is focusing on other virtual reality projects, such as "Dragonfly," which the company plans to have virtual reality hardware makers use with their own products, PC Magazine reported. The company said the Dragonfly's features include color and infrared imagery, greater-than-HD image resolution, and a larger field of view.
